Project Setup¶

Initializing a Project¶

Run collider init in a directory that contains a meson.build file:

collider init

This creates a collider.json file with an empty dependency list. Collider refuses to initialize outside a Meson project.

The collider.json File¶

collider.json lives at the root of your Meson project, next to meson.build. It declares project metadata and dependencies:

{
  "description": "My Meson library",
  "dependencies": [
    { "name": "fmt", "source": "system" },
    { "name": "my-lib", "source": "collider", "version": ">=1.2.0" }
  ]
}

Each dependency has:

System dependencies are not managed by Collider. They document that the project expects a system-installed library. Only "collider" dependencies are resolved and installed.

Running Meson Setup¶

collider setup configures the Meson build:

collider setup

By default, the build directory is collider-build. Override it with --builddir:

collider setup --builddir build

To pass arguments through to Meson, place them after --:

collider setup -- --buildtype=debug -Dfoo=bar

You can also specify a different source directory:

collider setup --sourcedir path/to/project

Build Directory Conventions¶

Collider defaults to collider-build as the build directory to avoid conflicts with a project's own build/ directory. Many Collider commands read Meson introspection data from this directory, so keep it consistent across your workflow.